3 Strategies to Boost your Leather Business in 2019
Have you ever looked at your competition or who you think is your competition and thought to yourself, “I make the same kind of leathergoods as they do. So why are they running a successful business and I can’t seem to make a sale?!”
Well it might be because you’re missing one of the 3 keystones of running a successful handmade business: Branding, customers and promotion.
Now I know from years in this business that once I started focusing on these 3 key elements of my business I saw more sales and I saw my business grow month after month.
If you’re just putting your beautiful products up online and waiting for sales to pour in, you better get comfortable. Because that just not a realistic plan and you might spend a lot of time waiting. It just doesn’t work that way.
What does work is developing a strong brand, knowing who your idea customer is and promoting your products to them.
Here are my 3 strategies for boosting your leathergoods business in 2019.
1: DEVELOP A STRONG BRAND
If you’re reading this and thinking, “what is a strong brand and how do I get one?”, let me break it down for you. A brand is something that can only be described as a feeling or emotion that you get from a company. A brand isn’t a product or a logo. It’s the result of those things put together to transport the viewer to a certain state of feeling. A brand is something that is unique to your company. It can answer the question, “what do you want to be known for?” and “how do you want to make people feel?”.
Some brands want to be known for
a modern style or a country style
for being serious, funny or high end
or for serving young hipsters in Brooklyn or an older crowd who enjoys the outdoors.
Obviously it’s not an exhaustive list of types of brands. There are an infinite number of different types of brands.
A strong brand should convey a specific feeling to someone when they land on your website. How do you want your customer to feel when they get there? How will you convey that feeling to them?
When you have a strong brand you’re able to lure in the people who are YESes for you and your brand and repel those that are NO’s.
2: DETERMINE WHO YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER IS
You ideal customer is the specific group of people who want what you’ve got AND they’ve got the money to buy it. Your ideal customer should not be as non-specific as, “people who like leathergoods”. You must get more specific then this.
If at this point in time you don’t have anyone specifically that wants what you have, then start to think about what groups of people might be interested and how you can start to tweek your products and messaging to attract them.
I used to think my ideal customer was women who liked leathergoods. But when that non-specific group of people was bringing me zero sales, I knew I had to get more specific and tap into a more niche group of people. So I decided to take my other love of vintage objects and mix the two to create rustic leathergoods for the home with a farmhouse vibe for rustic farmhouse lovers. See how much more specific that is?
Even if you don’t know what rustic farmhouse decor is, you can see how much more specific this group is people is and see that I now have specific groups that I can target. I can target the rustic home decor crowd and people who love vintage decor and farmhouse living. It opens up a specific and huge group of potential customers.
3: PROMOTE TO YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER
Now that we’ve got a strong brand and it’s attracting our ideal customer, lets not sit on our laurels and wait for the sales. Now you need to promote your products to that specific group of people. This is no time to be bashful.
If you have something that can help someone or solve a problem or desire, you should share it with them. Do this by blogging, posting on social media, doing giveaways, doing sales, building your email list and emailing them regularly. Reach out to your group of people and offer you help and services.
It might sound silly to think that you could be really helping someone that much because, it’s just a leathergood, right? But if your little wallet or leather storage basket with vintage plate in it brightens someone’s day and makes them happy, then consider them served by you!
